In A Melting World

The Inuit call the Narwhal the one that points to the sky,
Because of their unique way of aiming their tusk upward;
The scientific name Narwhal means one tooth and one horn,
Narwhals are the subject of mythical tales, legend and lore.

Mottled white gray and black is their skin , so corpse-like,
Most spend the winter in Baffin Bay, northern Canada;
In heavy packs of ice, a world of giant crashing ice burgs,
A treeless white tundra that goes on forever and ever.

The Narwhal can dive down miles in the water to feed,
Sadly some die of suffocation due to the surface freezing;
They do need to take breaths through cracks in the ice,
One must wonder, why they choose this frozen location.

Narwhals summer in Hudson Bay, Greenland and Russia,
Moving through narrow channels during the spring melt;
They are threatened by overhunting by the Inuit for food and ivory,
Also from mining and drilling and from global warming.

Such amazing creatures, a fantastic animal of fifteen feet,
With this incredible long spiraled tusk, unicorn-like;
An eight foot flexible horn that bends to the left, mysteriously,
Actually a tooth that continues to grow all of their life.

All males have these tusks along with another smaller tooth,
Emerging from their upper jaw, with no apparent use;
Not anything to do with a weapon or for fishing or for eating fish,
It seems to be a beautiful male adornment for finding love.

Often they are seen rubbing tusks, this is called tusking,
It is thought to be not only part of mating but hierarchy;
Narwhals communicate by clicking, whistling and knocking,
A haunting sound the pierces the frozen silent ice world.

In past years, many were captured for scientific study,
However, they all died in captivity, it seems they need ice;
Some wild creatures are just not meant to be kept captive,
Many of God’s animals are just suppose to be free in nature.